Macy & Family – Page 2

Library Renovation

June 5, 2019March 14, 2024admin

Matt is always looking at houses in our area (and I might also do this at times) dreaming of something better. After online looking at many houses we decided we might as well just stick with what we’ve got an make it the way we want it.

Our house originally had a one car garage that was quickly converted by the first owners into a bedroom to make an in-law suite on one side of the house. In our first big renovation two years ago we finally got rid of the extra kitchen and redid the downstairs bathroom. You can see all of that here. We mostly used the one car garage turned bedroom as a guest room/storage room.

Our book collection was outgrowing the current shelves in the family room and we needed to move some out so that we can get some more seating in there. All six of us don’t fit on the one couch anymore, so it was time to find a way to rearrange the house a bit to make it work better for us. The family room is still a work in progress and I don’t think I have any true before pictures for that, but I’ll post some finished ones once we rearrange and get some new seating.

So in order to do this we decided to take the front half of the guest room and turn into a library that connects to the playroom. The bedroom then became much smaller, but still usable as a guest room. As any project in an older home goes (especially ours as the previous owners were tinker-ers and did most renovations themselves and not very well), it ended up taking longer than planned and was more expensive than planned, but we are so happy with the end result.

So here are some before photos:
The guest room after it was completely emptied:

The playroom wall that came down:

This is the wall that came down:

A few in progress pictures, much to my disappointment they didn’t just bust through the wall like Chip Gaines.

And some after (about 3 months from start to finish):

And finally (since we just had our first visitors), the guest room is ready! Here are a few pictures. It’s very simple and a little on the small side, but we don’t often have many visitors (though anyone is welcome anytime). Feel free to come visit!

What a difference! And now we have pretty much completely redone one side of the house, now on to the other side.

summer reading – 8 year old recommendations

June 8, 2018March 14, 2024admin

Eloise is 8 and also loves reading, at least we are doing something right. She reads quite a bit and has just recently finished her first 400+ page book. She was super excited about it. Here are some of her recommendations for your summer reading.

1. Ramona – Everyone loves Ramona, she’s spunky, funny and sometimes a pest. I just noticed that the final book in the series wasn’t published until 1999, which I definitely didn’t read it. I might need to add it to my summer reading list.

2. Ada Lace – Ada is a new series that we just got from the library recently, the first two anyways. We also just won them from The Mighty Girl website, but haven’t received them yet. Both Greta and Eloise loved them. Ada is a girl who loves science, math and solving mysteries.

3. My Weird School – Again another series that Greta loved and Eloise is currently loving. There are so many of these books, and I never can remember which ones we own and which ones they have read. They are all funny and based on the Ella Mentry School.

4. Bailey School Kids – Another big series, over 80 books in this one! In each book the students encounter a regular person who might be a mythical being.

5. Katie Kazoo (also George Brown and Project Droid also by Nancy Krulik) – Katie Kazoo has long been a favorite around here. Katie switches between herself and another character in each book, leading to funny antics. In the past year I looked up the author of Katie Kazoo and learned she had some other early chapter book series and so off we went to the library. George Brown, class clown and Project Droid were both a hit.

6. Who was books – I’m sure you have seen these books in every store around. They are biography books about different famous people, everyone from Jesus to Princess Diana and everyone in between. There are also What Is books and Where Is books. Lots of topics to interest lots of kids.

7. Heidi Heckelbeck – Heidi Heckelbeck is a witch trying to be a normal girl. These might be better for a slightly younger reader, they have lots of illustrations and fairly large print. Looking on amazon I realized there are several new ones that we haven’t read, off to the library request list.

8. Dog Man – Eloise got these graphic novels for her birthday. They are written by the author of Captain Underpants, which she has also enjoyed. Dog Man is part dog, part human and loves to seek justice.

9. Cam Jansen – Cam Jansen is also better for a slightly younger reader, but Eloise still enjoys them. Both of the older girls tend to read a wide range of reading level books, everything from picture books, to beginning chapter books, to longer chapter books. Cam is another spunky girl (lots of spunky girl books here) who likes to have fun and solve mysteries along the way.

10. And some repeats from her sisters’ list – Thea Stilton and Compass South – Greta added both of these to her list, but Eloise wanted them on as well, so here they are. Thea Stilton goes on adventures around the globe and Compass South is about two pirates traveling the world.

Have you read any of these? Have anything else to recommend?

***Links are amazon affiliate links.

Summer reading – 6 year old recommendations

June 7, 2018March 14, 2024admin

Beatrice is 6, finishing up kindergarten and reading beginning reading books that contain lots of site words and words that are fairly easy to sound out. She really loves reading and is excited to try her first chapter book over the summer. Here are some of her favorite beginning reader books. All of these books are series of books, so there are numerous options by the same author.

1. Ling & Ting – Twin girls who are up to some silly antics.

2. Mia – These books are about a dancing cat. Nothing super special here, but the girls love them, and I don’t mind them.

3. Fancy Nancy – I love Fancy Nancy, the illustrations are always so fun. There are a whole bunch of beginning reader books that tackle everything from field trips, the 100th day of school, the tooth fairy, etc.

4. Piggie & Elephant – I still remember buying our first Piggie and Elephant book when I was pregnant with Eloise. I immediately fell in love with them and we have ended up owning every single book. They are great for all ages to listen to, but they are also great for beginning readers to try and read on their own. Piggie and Elephant books are also one of my go-to gifts for preschoolers.

5. Dr. Suess – The classic beginning to read books! I know there are those who really can’t stand Dr. Suess books, but I think they are great, with all the rhyming and funny made up words. It’s great for sounding out and they have been some of Eloise and Beatrice’s favorite books to start reading with.

6. Biscuit – In Beatrice’s class the kids can bring in books to read to the class. In the beginning of the year several kids were bringing in Biscuit books and she was dying to read some of them as well. So Biscuit it is. Biscuit is a cute little dog with some silly antics.

7. Andy & Sandy – These books are by the great Tomie dePaola, who we LOVE. These are super, super easy books to start with, most has just 3-6 words per page. They are cute, simple, and come in wonderful hardcovers like Piggie and Elephant.

8. Penny – Another author I’ve loved for a long while is Kevin Henkes. In fact about 5 years ago we met him in person! In addition to his beautiful pictures books, he also has a set of books for beginning readers.

9. Pete the Cat – Pete the Cat is great because in addition to the longer picture books with songs (available on their website), they also make beginning reader books in a whole slew of topics. Pete always seems to be doing the right thing and rescuing someone.

10. Little Bear – I remember reading Little Bear books when I was a child. They are so sweet and a little silly as well, just some very classic early readers.

Do you have any other favorites for a 6 year old beginning reader?

***Links are amazon affiliates links.

Summer reading – 4 year old recommendations

June 7, 2018March 14, 2024admin

Here are a few of the books Felicity would like to recommend to you for your summer reading. Felicity is 4 years old and loves being read to. I’ll add that these are books we both agreed to put on the list because if I let her completely choose, it would be full of Dora, Princess, Fancy Nancy, Pinkalicious, etc. Since most everyone has heard of those books we tried to add some less familiar books (and books I, as the parent really enjoy reading as well).

1. Anna Hibiscus Double Trouble – We love the Anna Hibiscus beginning chapter books, and so we went ahead and bought the picture book as well. Anna Hibiscus lives in Africa and this is the story of her two brothers being born. Both the chapter and picture books aren’t available at our library, so we did decide to splurge on them after so many recommendations for them. They are definitely worth the investment and are wonderful stories about a family growing up in Africa.

2. Hattie & Hudson – This was on our list last week, but since we just added it to our personal library, we have been reading it quite a lot. Felicity loves it!

3. No More Monsters for Me – This is a recent favorite. It’s also a great beginning reader book as the words are pretty simple, minus the main character’s name, Minneapolis Simpkin.

4. The Giant Jumperee – Everyone here loves this book about a little bitty frog scaring everyone, including an elephant, bear, and cat.

5. The Snatchabook – This poor little guy just wants someone to read him a story. He doesn’t go about it in the best way, but makes it up to everyone in the end.

6. Mostly Monsterly – This has been a favorite around here for years. Bernadette is a very sweet monster who goes to monster school and doesn’t quite fit it, but she learns to be true to herself, even if it means being different.

7. Minerva Louise – Minerva Louise is a silly chicken who always takes things very literally, kind of like Amelia Bedelia. We have several of her books and they are all equally silly. Many of these are hard to find, but if you do find them they are worth it!

8. Piggies – Another book that has been a favorite for years. We have the paperback version and it’s definitely seen better days.

9. Take Me Home Country Roads – All of the girls loved picture books that are songs, especially ones that we know, anything from the itsy bitsy spider, to Take Me Home Country Roads. There are several John Denver songs turned into books with beautiful illustrations and we love them all.

10. You are My Cupcake – This is a super simple board book probably more appropriate for a baby or toddler, but Felicity still regularly picks it out to read. It’s full of cute sayings like you are my cupcake, my sticky little gumdrop.

Have you read any of these? Do you have any to add?

***As usual, links are amazon affiliate links.

Summer reading – 10 year old recommendations

June 7, 2018March 14, 2024admin

I love hearing what books kids recommend other kids their age read, so I asked my kids. I’ll do a separate post for each of them. We all know that summer reading is a must, either for school or just for fun. All of these titles don’t necessarily have anything to do with summer, but they are favorites that my kids want to share with you.

Greta just turned 10, is a voracious reader and these are her recommendations.

1. Amal Unbounded – Greta just got this for her birthday and read it this week during exams. Amal becomes a servant to help repay her family’s debt. It’s the story of a brave girl who tries to out herself from a negative situation.

2. Compass South – This is a graphic novel Greta picked out at the library, and apparently it’s so great she wants to recommend it. Twins are trying to get away from pirates as they travel from place to place. There is a second book as well, that we are hoping to get from the library soon.

3. Anne of Green Gables – Does Anne need any explanation?

4. Hans Brinker (Great Illustrated Classics) – A boy and a girl work together to solve two problems.

5. Unicef books Children Just Like Me, Celebrations, A Life Like Me, A School Like Me. – Greta has loved these books for years. They show children all over the world living their life. There are detailed descriptions and bright colorful pictures. These are great for many ages, but she is the one who loves them the most in our house.

6. St. Clare’s & Malory Towers – These are hard to find in the USA. Our library doesn’t have any books by Enid Blyton, but I had read many good reviews and recommendations for them, so we took a chance and purchased them (one set at a time), and Greta fell in love with them. She describes them as boarding school girls playing hilarious tricks on their teachers.

7. Geronimo Stilton (Adventures in the Kingdom in Fantasy) & Thea Stilton – At this stage Greta prefers the longer Geronimo Stilton books, which are called Adventures in the Kingdom in Fantasy and she still enjoys the Thea Stilton books because they travel the world on their adventures.

8. Mandy & The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles – Both of these are by Julie Andrews, yes, that Julie Andrews. Did you know she wrote books too? And really great ones at that, what can’t she do!?! I read Mandy out loud to everyone last year and they all loved it. It’s a book that I had tried to get Greta to read many times before, but she said it looked boring. Alas, when I started reading it out loud to her sisters, she immediately got sucked in and loved it just as much as they did. The same thing happened with The Last of the Really Greta Whangdoodles, except her teacher read it aloud to the class this year. Even though her class just finished reading aloud she read ahead many months ago to find out what happened.

9. Little House – As with Anne, do these need any explanation? We need to try and read them aloud again here. I think Greta is the only one who I’ve read them all to. I’ve started a few other times with the others but they weren’t as interested or too young at the time.

10. Gooney Bird Greene – Gooney Bird Greene is written by Lois Lowry, which I previously thought of only as the author of Number the Stars. This is nothing like that, but equally good. Gooney Bird is a silly girl who gets into mischief, she is very lovable. Eloise loves these books as well.

11. The Watsons go to Birmingham – Greta read this for Reading Olympics this year. This takes place during the Civil Rights movement and the Watsons are in Birmingham when their grandmother’s church is blown up.

12. Anything by Andrew Clements – Greta has long been a fan of Andrew Clements. Eloise has just started to get into his books. He writes silly stories often about school. The most famous of his books is Frindle about a boy who decides to start calling pens, frindles.

Have you read any of these? Do you have any to add?

***As usual, all links are amazon affiliates links.

Lucy’s favorite books of 2017

January 4, 2018March 14, 2024admin

I set out with a goal of reading 24 books last year (2 per month) and ended up surpassing it! I read 40 books. It was definitely the most books I’ve read as an adult. Some things I did to increase my reading time was always having two books going, one digital and one actual book. That way when I was stuck upstairs putting kids to bed for longer than expected or before bed I would read the digital book. My physical book I kept downstairs on the table and read at breakfast and lunch (sometimes only a page or two between questions or requests from children) and then again in the evening after everyone was asleep. I used to watch probably 30 minutes to an hour of tv after kid bedtime, but that rarely happens any more. The other biggest thing I did was choosing books that kept my interest and were relatively fast moving. Over the years I’ve bought a lot of books that everyone loves but I just could never get into and I’ve decided that’s ok and it’s better to read something I LOVE than something other people think I should read. So find something that you want to read. This year that turned out to be a lot of memoirs, especially about people escaping something: religion, war, dictatorship. So here are of my favorites that I read this year. Maybe you will find something that peaks your interest here.

1. Stars between the Moon and Sun – This was my favorite of the North Korea escape stories. And really I think it is one of the more graphic and horrific accounts. So be prepared to be horrified and want to do something to help.

2. Princess Academy – This is a 3 book series, and I preferred the first in the series to the others, but read the others because I wanted to know how the story ended. This is a middle grade fiction novel, so really quite different from most of what I read, but it was full of adventure and kept my attention. I mostly set out to read it to see if Greta would like it. I think she would, but there were a couple of tense scenes that might be too much for her. I think I will probably try to get her to read it in the next year or two (she is 9.5 right now).

3. Left to Tell – I really didn’t know much about the Rwandan genocide before this book. It is very graphic, but a very powerful story about Immaculee’s faith that sustains her.

4. The Sound of Gravel – This was my favorite of the polygamist escape stories that I read. I’ve read a bunch about polygamy in the past as well and really I’m just fascinated by the whole culture. This again was pretty graphic and some horrific things happens. (What does it say about me that I keep reading about all of these horrible tragedies? I think I just like to see how much the human spirit can triumph in the end).

5. Kisses from Katie – I read both this and her next book, Daring to Hope, but found this one much more moving. Katie is girl from Tennessee who decides to go live in Uganda before college and then ends up moving there and adopting a bunch of kids. This is a lovely story of faith and where it can lead you.

6. A Hope More Powerful than the Sea – Another escape story. This time from Syria. This really is something everyone should read because this is occurring right now. We have some local Syrian refugee families who attend the English class that I volunteer at, and this really was the reason I started to get involved in the class.

7. Echo – This is a middle grade novel, or maybe even young adult. I listened to this on audio and it was very lovely. This book is broken into three different parts with three different stories. In the end all of the stories are somehow linked together, which is kind of cool. The harmonica is the key component linking three different stories and with the audible version, the music really enhances the story.

8. Refugee – This is another middle grade novel, but it is based on lots of research about refugees. This is also three stories, but rather than being three separate parts, the chapters alternate between characters. I found this made me want to keep reading and reading because I really needed to know what happened to the characters. In fact at one point I had to skip ahead on one story to find out what happened. This isn’t too graphic, but there are still some tense parts, so I would say maybe 6th grade and up could and should read this.

9. Hattie Big Sky – Kind of like Laura Ingalls Wilder on her own at age 16. Hattie gets left some land in Montana and at the age of 16 goes out to live on the land. There is a sequel as well, but I enjoyed this one much more. This is another middle grade novel. Greta couldn’t be convinced to read this, but I think she would have enjoyed it.

10. Beyond Belief – This was the first and most eye-opening book about Scientology that I read this year. This is told by a girl who was raised in Scientology and how children were treated during the 80s/90s. Supposedly much of the actions in this book have stopped, but not all. Definitely an interesting read into a bizarre religion (if you can call it that).

What were your favorites of the year? Anything I should add to my to-read list for this year?

**Links are amazon affiliate links. All books were either bought by me or borrowed from our wonderful library.

Bathroom remodel

March 30, 2017March 14, 2024admin

Since we have lived in our house (almost 7 years), we have had some sewer problems. Every 6-18 months our sewer would become backed up and the plumber would come out and unclog it, tell us we should probably get a camera to look at the sewer pipe if it kept happening. The last time it happened back in September we finally found someone with a camera and they took a lovely video (I would post it but it contains our address and I’m not keen on our address being associated with this site, so alas you don’t get to see the lovely inside of our sewer pipe) which showed that the pipe was indeed cracked and also collapsed in one place. So we started planning to have it replaced. The main issue is that the sewer pipe is in the concrete slab in the playroom/downstairs bathroom and runs the entire width of the house, so it was going to be a BIG job.

Since the downstairs bathroom was going to be mostly destroyed during the process we opted to take the time and money to expand it at the same time. We have four girls and two small bathrooms, so this was certainly the time to do it, since I’m sure in the future we will need more bathroom space than we had. To expand the bathroom meant we would loose the in-law suite kitchen, which we didn’t really use except to store miscellaneous kitchen items that we rarely used. We also decided since the plumbing would be getting all redone now was the time to move the washer and dryer upstairs from the basement. So the first step was to remove the in-law kitchen and clean out the playroom (remove the carpet and other flooring below it). Here are some before pictures of the playroom and the in-law kitchen. As you can see they were oh so lovely in their 70s glory.

Here is the playroom (minus the carpet) looking toward the main work area. The far left door is the guest bedroom, followed by the entrance to the in-law kitchen and on the right is the bathroom door.

This is the in-law kitchen from it’s entrance doorway. The window remains.

Here is the full in-law kitchen before we removed anything.

The countertops.

The floors, a lovely indoor-outdoor carpet, because obviously that is a good choice for a kitchen.

And now let’s tour the old bathroom.

You can pretty much see everything from the doorway. In most houses in our neighborhood this bathroom is just a half bathroom, but ours has a shower added as well, which I am very grateful for, but the whole thing is super tiny and has practically zero storage.

Everyone is totally jealous of this wall tile right?

The shower was actually pretty spacious and came very much in handy after coming home the pool, all 4 kids could fit in there.

This little shelf is where we stored a great majority of the stuff, hair stuff, lotion, extra shampoo, dirty cloth diapers in a hanging bag, etc.

The vanity stored extra toilet paper and that’s about it.

And the lovely medicine cabinet and light.

And now it’s time to destroy it! Here is about the worst it was, a huge trench from the front of the house to the back, no walls!

And the bathroom area.

Here is the old sewer pipe, pretty nasty looking. Now we have a beautiful new PVC one.

After more than 2 months, this Tuesday the plumber came and installed the new toilet and other plumbing fixtures. At long last we have two bathrooms again. I will say that I was pretty impressed with how well one bathroom worked for us. I was terrified it would be awful, but we really didn’t have any problems. The bathroom is 95% done. We still need to paint the baseboards and install a toilet paper holder and towel rack, but it’s usable and mostly done. The project continues though, since we still need to replace the carpet in the playroom and set up the new laundry area.

Here is the entrance to the former in-law kitchen (now the laundry room). We closed up the previous bathroom door and moved the entrance to the laundry area.

The door to the bathroom. The washer and dryer will go under the window.

The bathroom has a pocket door to save space and we have oodles of cabinet space now! On the far right is a tall linen cabinet that goes almost to the ceiling.

The toilet area is to the left immediately when you come in the door.

The shower is a little bit smaller than the previous one, but still plenty of room for a few kids. We got a new window and two little cubbies for shampoo/soap/etc.

There is endless countertop for us to clutter up. The final details, the sink and the light fixture.

And that’s it! We have a beautiful new bathroom. We are all very happy with it. Now on to finishing the laundry area and playroom. (P.S. the only work we did ourselves was painting (Matt) and hanging the mirror (me)). I’ll finish up with mounting the toilet paper holder and towel rack and maybe I’ll come back and add some more pictures when I do that.

Updated!
I forgot to show you the beautiful wallpaper that was under the lovely faux wood paneling in the playroom. In many places in our house the previous owners painted over wallpaper and it appears it was this wallpaper. It covers a good majority of our house. I can’t even imagine what this house looked like when it was covered in wallpaper, I so wish we had some pictures.